We fund only organizations that are recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as having 501(c)(3) status and that, as a general rule, are not private foundations.
The Foundation does not make grants to individuals for any purpose.
Grant requests from organizations and programs outside of the State of New York cannot be considered for funding. In addition, Altman Foundation grants focus almost without exception on organizations and programs within the five boroughs of New York City.
As a general rule, the Foundation does not fund the following:
Bricks and mortar, other capital projects, or the purchase of capital equipment
Galas, benefits, and other fundraising events
Conferences or symposia that are not connected to current Altman grants
Concerts, theater or media performances, or art exhibitions that are not connected to current Altman grants
Instructional programming or artist-in-residence programs within the public schools or in correctional facilities
Budget deficits
Disease-specific projects, with the exception of initiatives aligned with our revised guidelines
Public universities or ongoing programs of private colleges and universities
Operating expenses and ongoing services of either public or voluntary hospitals
Please see the Program Interests tab above and please review our Guidelines.
While we have limited funds available for new, non-foundation-initiated grantmaking, if, after reviewing the Program Interests tab above, you believe your work is directly in line with the results we seek, we want to know about what you are doing via a Letter of Inquiry using our grant portal.
To determine if your work and the results you achieve are in line with the Foundation’s priorities, please carefully review our Guidelines, including the objectives and results sought.
For examples of the type of grants we make, please see our recent grants lists.
Given our small staff, we are unable to meet individually in response to general inquiries about the Foundation’s priorities. We encourage you to review the Guidelines and our Approach carefully. If you believe that there is a fit between the results we seek and the ones your program and organization can already document achieving, you may want to submit a Letter of Inquiry using our grant portal. This will allow us to review your materials and follow up with you if we need to clarify what has been submitted; please see the Application Basics tab above.
Please bear in mind that at this time limited funds are available for new, non-foundation-initiated grantmaking.
Given this restriction on our grantmaking, we are not accepting full proposals from organizations that are not already current grantees of the Foundation. Instead, we ask that you send a Letter of Inquiry through our grant portal that introduces your organization and the program or project that you would like the Foundation to consider.
This answer does not apply to current Altman grantees seeking renewal, who will be contacted about preparing full reports and proposals through the grant portal.
We do not have application deadlines for requests from organizations that are not current Altman grantees. Foundation staff review letters of inquiry on a rolling basis.
Grantees seeking renewed funding will be notified by e-mail of recommended dates for submitting their proposals to the Foundation. If the proposal and required attachments are late, your grant review may be delayed. We cannot, in any case, guarantee that a request will be presented at any particular board meeting.
If you submit a Letter of Inquiry via our grant portal, you will receive a reply telling you that your inquiry has been received.
All applications are reviewed on a rolling basis by program staff. The time required for this review process can vary depending on the volume of proposals under consideration; we do our best to process materials in a timely fashion.
Generally, you will receive a letter within four to six weeks if your request has been declined.
We strongly recommend that you revisit the Foundation's Guidelines, grants list, and our Approach before you proceed with future requests. In addition, please check the website for notices about the availability of funding, and please wait at least twelve to eighteen months before reapplying.
Unfortunately, the volume of applications and inquiries prevents us from providing feedback on each request.
If after reviewing your letter of inquiry and any further information, we think that there appears to be a potential match between your work and ours, a program officer will contact you about submitting a full proposal.
A request for a full proposal does not in any way guarantee that a grant will be either recommended to or awarded by the Foundation’s Trustees.
The investment types are described in our Guidelines. You can also find guidance on this in the User Library on the grant portal.
If you are providing technical assistance services to other organizations, they are your clients and you should complete the “direct service” questions. The “capacity building” questions are designed for organizations seeking to build their own internal capacity.
Guidance about what we are looking for in results statements can be found in the User Library section of the grant portal. We would also suggest that you review our Approach. If your proposal proceeds to the due-diligence process, you will have conversations with your program officer that will address the results statement as well.
If we are reviewing a full proposal, we routinely make site visits, which are arranged by the program staff person working on your proposal.
Financial review is an essential part of our process. We require up-to-date audited financial statements and other materials, as listed on our application form (see Application Checklist). These will be reviewed in depth and we will follow up with you about any concerns that we might have.
Board governance is another area of interest for the Foundation. There is a question about this on the application form, and we will explore this with you as part of our due diligence.
Our Trustees review grant recommendations at five regularly scheduled meetings spread out over the year. We will notify you by mail of the Board’s decision within two weeks of the meeting at which your request was presented.
You have probably had several discussions with your program officer by this point. S/he is the best source of information about future prospects and timing of any future requests.
You will receive a transmittal letter that outlines the expectations for your grant in terms of the results you have set out for yourself, our reporting requirements, and any special restrictions on your grant. In most cases this letter is accompanied by a check.
You will be asked to send a letter, required for our records, that:
acknowledges receipt of your grant and your grant check;
states the purpose and amount of the grant; and
states your understanding and acceptance of any particular restrictions on your award noted in our grant transmittal letter.
Your program officer will be able to help you with any other questions you may have.
For a grant that will run anywhere from twelve to eighteen months, made with one single payment, we only require, in general, one final report toward the end of the grant period.
For a multi-year grant, on which the Foundation is making more than one payment, we require and review an interim report toward the end of each one-year period before any funds are released for a subsequent year, and a final report toward the end of the final grant year. Your program officer will also arrange site visits and/or other meetings as necessary over the course of the grant period.
Your grant transmittal letter will include the organizational benchmarks and anticipated results that you have included in your proposal to the Foundation and discussed and agreed upon with your program officer. We want to hear about your progress—in bullet format—toward achieving these results, as well as about other achievements that you may wish to highlight.
We also want to hear about challenges you faced and about what you learned along the way or intend to do differently in the future. [This information is important for us as we work to improve our own grantmaking practice, including improving the questions we ask as we review proposals. We also believe it can be helpful to our grantees as they reflect on their own work.]
We will also ask you to attach a line-item budget that shows how our funds were used, indicating unspent funds, if any, and a copy of your most recent audited financial statements.
Final reports are due at or before the end of the grant period, as indicated in the Foundation’s grant transmittal letter and in the email you will receive from us well before the report’s due date.
Final reports for grants that are ending, but for which there is the possibility of renewal, and for which the grantee would ideally like to have contiguous funding, are due 10 - 12 weeks before the end of the grant; we will be in touch with you about the actual due date. While we realize that this may seem early in the grant period, we cannot consider a renewal request without a final report on the prior grant, and we need two to three months to determine if consideration of a renewal proposal is appropriate, and complete the due diligence on all the requests scheduled for any given docket, including making site visits, in time to allow for review by our Trustees.
If you have not completed the work you set out to achieve during your grant period at the time your final report is due, but have a high level of certainty that all the work will be completed before the actual end of your grant year, then we ask that you include in your report what you expect to have accomplished by the grant end date. A brief supplemental report containing an update on your work, a summary of results achieved, and any final deliverables may be emailed to the Foundation in the course of your discussions with your program officer closer to the actual end of your grant.
If, however, you do not expect to have completed a material deliverable or other portion of your work by the end of the grant period, we would ask that you contact your program officer to discuss the potential for or necessity of requesting a no-cost extension on your grant in order to allow you to complete the work.
Use your log-in and password to access the grantee portal in Fluxx.
Click on “Upcoming Reports” in the “Reports” section and then click on the appropriate card for the type of report (“Interim” or “Final”) that you are submitting.
You can begin work on your report at any point in your grant cycle, but please remember to save your work before leaving the screen. Be sure to click “submit” when you are ready to send the report to us, either at the due date indicated in our email or as discussed with your program officer.
